Germany says “nein” to three-strikes infringement plan

Some governments are seriously entertaining the idea of implementing " …

While some countries are eager to implement a "three strikes" Internet piracy law, others are slowly backing away into the dugout. German lawmakers sat down privately with ISPs to talk about a proposed P2P policy that would take repeat filesharing offenders offline, but both sides have agreed that the policy's methods would be at odds with the country's privacy laws.

Specific details of the meeting between the German Department of Justice and the ISPs are unknown, but German language news site Heise Online (badly Google-translated page) claims that the two parties walked away agreeing that such an invasive system would run into legal trouble. The ISPs reportedly described the meeting as "successful" and are working on a joint venture with content providers that would allow for more straightforward licensing terms along with better legal download options.

The three strikes concept, also known as "graduated response," was first seriously entertained by France in 2007. The idea is that Internet users who are caught illegally downloading copyrighted files would receive a warning from their ISPs upon the first offense, a temporary account suspension upon the second offense, and have their Internet access completely revoked after the third infraction. The idea quickly spread to the UK, with Parliament considering implementing similar legislation (but without actual disconnections) thanks to heavy lobbying from content owners. And New Zealand is on track to implement a graduated response scheme (with disconnections) by the end of this month. The largest ISP in Ireland has also agreed to graduated response, and various US ISPs are exploring it on a voluntary basis.

Unsurprisingly, the global music trade group IFPI has applauded these efforts, saying that "good things are beginning to come to pass" because of them. ISPs are almost universally against having to boot paying customers without a judge's order, as end users tend to respond vocally to such plans. In the worst cases, the ISPs have no legal protection from either Big Content or customers if either feels the ISP is doing a shoddy job at enforcement, as exemplified by the situation in New Zealand.

Germany, however, is moving in the other direction. In addition to the information conveyed by Heise's sources, German blog Spreeblick (translated page) managed to get comments on the three strikes proposal right from the horse's mouth: Germany's Secretary of Justice, Brigitte Zypries.

Zypries said that she doesn't believe the three strikes model is fitting for Germany, or even the rest of Europe. She described the system as "highly problematic" because of constitutional and political considerations, and said that "once the first disconnects start to happen in France, we will be hearing the outcry all the way to Berlin."

Maybe I can offer some sort of explanation why Germany has that sort of privacy laws at all, and why the public pays any attention to those matters (albeit critics claim that people at large are much too naive about their personal data even here in Germany).

In recent history, atrocities have been committed in Germany on a scale that is difficult to comprehend even under the realization that yes, they did actually murder millions, and they organized it on a regular work schedule, as if they were running any ordinary business.

It is these past events that make today's citizens of Germany wary of a government that collects lots and lots of data on its subjects. Or that even only allows private businesses to build such data bases. Back in the day, the Nazis abused just such data to hunt down their victims.

That's why the soothing words of our Minister of the Interior don't really calm us down. We don't expect HIM to abuse the data he wants to collect. We just don't trust all his future successors ...

I guess other countries have less of a reason to have privacy laws. Or at least they think they have less of a reason.

It's always troubling to see RIAA-sponsored industry efforts to turn respective governments into private civil and criminal police forces dedicated to preserving RIAA-member profit margins. Likewise it's always comforting to see that governments are belatedly realizing they are being had in the process.

That's why the soothing words of our Minister of the Interior don't really calm us down. We don't expect HIM to abuse the data he wants to collect. We just don't trust all his future successors ...

Reminds me of what one politician said about the patriot act in the US; you write laws designed for those who aren't in power yet rather than who is. The person who is in power might have the most noble reasons and never abuse that power - but how do we know what his or her successors will be like?